About the author:

John MacLeod was born and raised in a Conservative Baptist home, asked Jesus Christ into his heart at the tender age of 5 or six, and had a happy, uneventful childhood. John was discipled in Youth for Christ (now Campus Life), got involved in Christian coffeehouses and street witnessing. He attended a Christian junior college but never finished due to an injury and the fact that school moved its campus before he could return. It was then that he felt a stirring in his heart that the Lord could and would teach him more of Himself and God's Word than he would learn by attending Christian colleges or seminaries. Shortly after he married, he and his new bride discussed the 'forbidden' topic of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts. Baptistic dogma held that such things were not for today, and any such manifestations claiming to be of God were demonic. When the couple decided to search out the scriptures for themselves, John found that what he had been taught was woefully short of the truth. After having read a book that brought conviction to him that his life was not what it ought to be, he cried out for God's help. It was then that the Holy Spirit whispered to him that if the baptism and gifts were of God, and still for today, didn't he want them? Carefully, John prayed that the Lord not let him be deceived, for he recognized that his own mind was insufficient to wade through all the arguments pro and con and sort out the truth from the error and deception. The Lord began to reveal the truth of a greater source of wisdom and ability than man-made (even Christian) education. He received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and was more in love with the Lord Jesus than ever.

Since John and his bride had had no teaching on the subject, and were suspicious of Pentecostal and Charismatic groups due to stories circulating about misuse of the gifts, they drifted away from the event that had so blessed and surprised them, until they came across a home Bible study that practiced using the gifts. It turned out to be a fringe group, which has since turned heretical. John and his wife became involved and moved onto one of their communities. They left after several months, and then the Lord began to teach John how and why they had been deceived.

John began reading Watchman Nee and A.W. Tozer, along with other noted writers, and learned from them. But the Lord began to enrich John's own Bible study and memorization. Soon a coffeehouse ministry resumed and a local neighborhood Bible study popped up where John could grow in the gifts of teaching and service, training new believers in the basics of the Faith so they would not fall into deceptive groups as he had.

As he taught from the Bible and compared what was simply, clearly written in God's Word with what was being taught in denominational circles however, it became more and more clear that much of the Traditional Church is deceived in one way or another. It became clear to John that the unity of the Faith all believers are called to is impossible until and unless we all come to hold the same truths as dear, and only the original, same truths delivered by the apostles(Eph. 4:13-14).

Had John's Baptist upbringing in the Faith included the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit he would not have gone into a deceived group and suffered many harsh things. Nevertheless, as the Lord does all things well, it was because of exposure to this group that John became keenly sensitive to discerning truth from error.

The Beth Ezra (House of the Helper) Teachings are a call for believers to put away all their man-made doctrines, dogma and traditions, and return to the doctrines, dogma and traditions the Lord gave His apostles-- in their proper context-- to teach the Church to follow until He returns.